1]. When was the last time anyone, especially someone of means, went to jail for any of the offences in the electoral act and related extant provisions of our constitution?

2]. Who pays for the cost of election re-runs and how are they budgeted for? At INEC’s projected cost of $7.9 per voter and a PVC collection rate of 75%, Rivers state with a registered voter count of 2,537,590 cost us about N3B for their guber election re-run

3.] What is our rate of election annulment? Why is this so? How do we stack with the rest of the world in this metric? What system tweaks are being made to address this?

4.] What is our level of voter awareness and confidence? Do voters know the real reason they are voting is to employ folks to work for them? Are voters from certain regions confident to go out on election day to cast their vote? What is being done about this?

5.] Can we afford to keep militarising whole states just because of elections? Can we remove the element of security from our voting? Are we mature for robust electronic voting? Do we have infrastructure in place to actualize this? How have we fared in similar endeavours with drivers license, national ID card, “e-passport”, registration of births/deaths and Jamb/Waec examinations? What is the impact of the supreme court judgement on Dakuku vs Wike (2015) in this regard and can it be remedied constitutionally?

6.] Should a comprehensive electoral reform, with the five points above taken into consideration, not be pursued as a matter of urgency by this administration?

One thought on “Points to Consider on Electoral Reform”

QWhat is our level of voter awareness and confidence? Do voters know the real reason they are voting is to employ folks to work for them? Are voters from certain regions confident to go out on election day to cast their vote? What is being done about this?

This is a very important question, but you see political office in the land stacks up a huge bill on the fiscal side and with perks of BIG MAN-ISM, we are electing folks whom we expect will be our servants, but indeed as soon as they get the ticket, they begin to build castles and pay patrimony to the kingmakers. So long as the Chairman of the party picks delegates for election at conventions we will get the lackeys of the power brokers. Our votes only authenticate a very flawed process. We simply rubber stamp their broken selection system

Q Can we afford to keep militarising whole states just because of elections? Can we remove the element of security from our voting? Are we mature for robust electronic voting? Do we have infrastructure in place to actualize this? How have we fared in similar endeavours with drivers license, national ID card, “e-passport”, registration of births/deaths and Jamb/Waec examinations? What is the impact of the supreme court judgement on Dakuku vs Wike (2015) in this regard and can it be remedied constitutionally?

The first question to ask is what is at stake in Nigerian politics?,, Why were our reps and senators scared of electronic voting initially? with a JAMB CBT that threw standards to the wind, can we realistically employ electronic voting?..is the mediocrity of non perfection in any venture we go into, not going to create more problems than it will solve? We simply dont have the infrastructure to actualize this and in my view what the INEC should be thinking is how to pilot ATM Voting. Cant we use the instrumentality of the banking systems actualise this?…

The reasons are simple we simply lack TRUST in a system we cant supervise personally and control physically. So who mans the back end of the platform?..why arent we sure that the govt will add 1 vote to every vote cast for their candidate?..the issue is TRUST…we dont trust each other and this is becos of our experience as a people…people always seek to manipulate the system…thats our experience..Many people have told GEJ that he was naive to insist on system building of the elctoral process..Many accuse him for giving INEC a free hand…..and i believe that I dont see any improvements in the electoral system, after GEJs fall..Politicians from both sides have seen how it is necessary to frustrate the system……It takes a principled leader post May 29th to empower INEC.

While the court case at supreme court reset the stage, it simply exposed politicians and their lack of attention to detail. It also exposed INECs lack of attention to detail. So long as INEC couldnt even upload card verification evidence it threw the efficacy and usefulness of the device into peril..It failed during the trials at the NASS and politicians who have 9lives though quickly how they can safeguard themselves, so the reduced its usefulness to a mere accesory and retained the registers.

This can change if only we have a fool proof system that guarantees trust. Till the, see you later